Weekend Observations

Arkansas and Texas A&M, two of Auburn’s future SEC West opponents, met on Saturday.

For the first time since Bowl Season last year, I watched a ton of college football this weekend. I took the opportunity to scout some of our upcoming opponents.

First, the bad news.

Of Auburn’s next three upcoming games, two of those are against teams that are showing tremendous improvement. Texas A & M and Ole Miss both looked much better in their respective games this past Saturday.

I saw a ton of positive strides taken by the Rebel Bear defense against Alabama, and I also saw that Ole Miss offense buckle under the pressure of the Tide defense. One glimmer of hope for any team is to try and run up the middle against Bama, and maybe that will open up a short passing game. Going deep against the Tide, is just bad business right now.

Auburn can beat the Rebel Bears if our offense can gain some sort of traction. Alabama continues to be a formidable opponent.

The Texas A & M team has a lot of heart, and no quit judging by their victory over hapless Arkansas. The Aggies appear to be taking to first year coach Kevin Sumlin and his staff. That team is not playing the same as week one, and will be a very tough battle for Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Arkansas can not be written off just yet, nor can any other team, if Auburn can’t gain some very positive momentum offensively.

The Good news you say? You want good news? Let’s see what we can eek out of our off week in the way of positive information.

I think that Scot Loeffler moving from the coach’s box to the sidelines will pay tremendous dividends for our young QB Kiehl Frazier. While this is not quite “good news” it is a positive move to keep the emotions of a young QB under control. he is Coach Loeffler’s to nurture, so it makes sense, at least to me, that Frazier’s mentor is on the sidelines for him each and every time he needs him.

While we are on the subject of Quarterbacks, can we talk?

It appears to me and apparently others as well, that gene Chizik, and Scot Loeffler are determined to stay with Kiehl Frazier at quarterback. This is a statement with several implications.

First, Clint Moseley is physically just not up to running this team. If he were, he would be the AU QB for the next two years. That Kiehl Frazier continues to be the starter, indicates that Auburn simply has no other option than to stick with Frazier.

Do not read into this that I think Frazier should be shelved. I think he simply is the only choice right now for Auburn. If and when Frazier gets a grasp of his emotions, and this new offense, he will be a really good QB. The only question is, how long does it take for the process to yield mostly positive results? This varies between each individual. We the fans want it to be yesterday, if not sooner.

While we all wait for the day that Frazier is living up to his potential, we must remember that Kiehl grew up playing Malzahn ball, and only changed this past spring. Both Frazier and Malzahn are Arkansas high school greats, asking Kiehl to change to a more pro-style offense, is unlearning everything he did from pee-wee ball through his first year in college. That is not something I would wish to do. I compare that change to learning to throw the football left handed, after you have been throwing with your right handed all your life.

Time is the healer in all this. We know from the coaching staff that Frazier is working very hard to get this fixed. We also know that he has the full support of the players. We the fans need to give this young man our support, along with the rest of the team, and remember that we are Auburn family. The wins will come, and their is plenty of time to salvage this season, and make a statement for a championship run next season. Which was the plan all along.

11 Comments

…..And Auburn will have to move the ball on Arkansas without their third leading receiver. Chizik announced today that Quan Bray will be suspended for the Arkansas game, and perhaps beyond, due to his arrest last week in Carrollton, Georgia.

I don’t know what to expect when we play Arkansas but A&M looked pretty good.
As regards the QB situation … At this point, I guess we have to dance with the one we got. Hope Loeffler can turn him around.

I’d buy the argument about changing systems etc if we were fundamentally sound. It’s one thing to have a defender way out of position because he didn’t understand his role in the scheme, but when he is in position he makes tackles. Likewise you could have a guy always in position that just can’t tackle well so it really doesn’t matter if he knows scheme or not if he can’t bring down ball carrier. That’s what I saw up until LSU. Same goes for Frazier. To me scheme is not so important. Yes it is important to know where your receives will be, but if you continually overthrow them does it really matter?? Throwing, catching, running, blocking, and tackling…these are the fundamentals that unite all the different “schemes” under the umbrella of football and you either have a team that executes fundamentals every play…or you don’t. I sure hope we have been working on those last week.. And of course reminding Loeffler that we have an all American fullback… Just saying.